As a demon army besieges his village, a young ninja ventures through a cursed world, to deliver a scroll paramount to his clan's survival.
Leveraging players expectations as a core game design ingredient, The Messenger is first presented as an 8-bit action platformer with a simple story, that unravels into an epic time traveling tale, eventually revealing itself as a 16-bit Metroidvania game packed with replay value and deadpan humor.
The Messenger is a great example of "old school platform". It's fun to play, challenging but never frustrating, with good graphics and an excellent soundtrack.
Resolutely challenging without ever being unfair, frequently gut-bustingly humorous and stuffed with all manner of unexpected twists and turns, The Messenger one of the most essential platformers on PS4. It really is that simple.
An inspired homage to old school Ninja Gaiden games, with a clever blending of genres and near perfect retro graphics and music.
The Messenger is a rock solid action platformer that balances out its retro stylings with modern touches and brilliantly slick controls. Blasting through the lengthy story is compelling, as new story beats and abilities are thrown into the mix. It perhaps flies a little too close to the sun later on as you hunt down the final few collectibles, but by...
When you're fully geared up and The Messenger is hitting you with brand new stages and challenges that you haven't seen before, The Messenger is an amazing, must-play experience. Taken as a whole, it's brought down only by fetch quests that make The Messenger last several hours longer than it feels like it should.